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Thursday, March 30, 2017

Another though on seasons

Last night I woke in the middle of the night thinking about Japan and the Japanese appreciation of nature and seasons. On Tuesday I had a brief interaction with my next door neighbour, it went something like this:
Neighbour: Beautiful day!
Me: Isn't it!
Neighbour: *Murmur mutter* autumn!
Me: I love autumn!
Neighbour: Me too!

It was the most meaningful conversation I'd ever had with him, I think because it was really obvious we both love autumn and I never really felt any connection with him before, though he's a perfectly pleasant person. This mutual season-loving conversation was really nice and I don't know if it was that or something I dreamed but I just woke up thinking about how in Japan, in the spring, they have cherry blossom parties. Japanese people would tell me that on a morning in sakura season a person in the office (every office) would be sent to a park with a blue tarp (so many blue tarps in Japan) and stake out their spot for the sakura party. The person would have to sit and mind that spot all day and then the rest of the office would come and join them to drink and enjoy the sakura when the work day finished. Can you imagine this being part of the Australian calendar. I mean it's awesome. In Japan in spring there are cherry blossoms everywhere and in the parks under those trees there are people on blue tarps everywhere. It's beautiful.

In the autumn in Japan if you tell someone you are going out of town they'd tell you the best places to visit to see the changing leaves. Or if you stay in town they tell you parks to visit to view the best autumn leaves. It struck me as a little strange until I walked through the forest in Kamakura in autumn and saw that the leaves really are beautiful.